The Unburied Past (20 page)

‘Come and join me,' he invited, patting the chair beside him as she went up the steps. ‘I won't bite.'

‘I was hoping for a game,' she said.

‘OK. I'm your man.'

Kirsty glanced at him in surprise. In the park back in July it had taken him all his time to speak to her. Perhaps the Great Healer had been at work.

‘You're on,' she said.

He was a strong player and they finished three hard sets before, flushed and breathless, they returned to the pavilion and joined the other four on the balcony.

‘Well, well!' Chrissie murmured, as Lance went to get drinks. ‘Do we take it the romance is rekindled?'

Kirsty flushed. ‘It was a game of tennis, that's all.'

‘If you say so!' Chrissie returned smugly.

‘Don't tease, darling,' Matt interposed and adroitly changed the subject. ‘Been on holiday, Kirsty?'

‘Yes, I had a couple of weeks in Barbados. It was great. How about you?'

‘Three weeks in Italy. We got back last weekend.'

‘Our holiday this year was all taken up by the honeymoon,' Lois said. ‘With luck, we might manage a weekend in Brighton before the winter sets in!'

Lance returned, handing Kirsty an ice-cold glass of lemonade and catching the end of the conversation. ‘Now summer's finally arrived, I'm happy to stay put,' he said.

Kirsty leant back in her chair, sipping the icy liquid and letting the conversation wash over her. Here in the sunshine, surrounded by her friends, thoughts of murder and harassment seemed ludicrously unreal. Just for a while, she could fool herself that they were.

‘Good heavens!' Marilyn Ferris exclaimed.

Dean, his attention on the match, glanced at her irritably. ‘What?'

‘Someone's asking for information about that young couple's murder, the summer—' She gave a little gasp as her husband sprang out of his chair and snatched the paper from her hands.

‘Where is it?'

‘In the personal column,' she faltered. ‘I always read it – I like the birthday messages.'

‘
Where
in the …' His voice trailed off as he located it and read aloud: ‘
Information sought concerning the murders of Mark and Emma Franklyn in Penthwaite, June 1986. Reward for information leading to conviction of perpetrators. Confidentiality guaranteed. Box number: 650817'

‘Fancy that coming up again, after all these years,' Marilyn ventured, as Dean continued to stare down at the paper in his hands. He'd gone pale, she noticed with a stirring of anxiety. ‘Darling? What is it? Are you all right?'

He didn't reply and she came to her feet, taking hold of his arm. ‘Dean?'

‘Why drag that all up again?' he said in a low voice. ‘Wasn't it enough …?'

He broke off and Marilyn, suddenly understanding, reached up to kiss his cheek. ‘You're worried it'll stir up memories of Tony's death,' she said, taking it as confirmation when he turned sharply to stare at her. ‘I know it happened around the same time, but it's all right, dear, it won't upset me. It's a long time ago now.'

He shook himself free of her and moved away. ‘I have to go out for a while.'

‘But I thought you were watching the football? You've been looking forward—'

‘I've just remembered something I have to do. I … shan't be long.'

He hurried from the room, leaving her staring after him, and it wasn't until she heard the front door close that she realized he'd taken the paper with him.

Alone in the car, Dean found he was shaking uncontrollably. God, what had happened? What, after all this time, had brought those terrible deaths back to public attention? His first instinct had been to speak to Barry, and he'd actually started to drive to his house before it struck him, with a crushing sense of helplessness, that he was as alone in this as he'd been twenty-six years ago. Drawing in to the side of the road, he switched off the engine and rested his forehead on the steering wheel.

Barry's recovery had been slow, and Dean had been left to run the company single-handed, buffeted by nightmares of the missing Tony and his patent – nightmares that had intensified when, weeks later, his bloated body was finally recovered. Although Barry's memory of the last hours before the stroke remained obliterated, Dean had considered telling him the truth on several occasions but, in his heart, he acknowledged the uselessness of it. Nevertheless, he bitterly resented the ease with which his brother had left him to deal with his nightmares alone.

He raised his head, smoothed out the crumpled newspaper and read the advertisement again. The urgency that had driven him out of the house had evaporated, but he'd told Marilyn he had something to do, and he must fill in an appropriate amount of time. He'd drive slowly round the block before returning home and trying to pick up the threads of the match he'd abandoned.

With a sigh he switched on the ignition, telling himself that if no suspicion had come their way at the time, none was likely to arise now, and whoever it was who was asking for information would have to accept that none was forthcoming.

Though he'd spoken of it to no one, Barry's memory – or what he took to be his memory – had, over the last year or so, begun to emerge from the shroud that had buried it. Sudden scenes would flash into his mind, disturbing, out of kilter, and like a dream fade before he could grasp them. He started to suffer his own nightmares, waking screaming and drenched with sweat. Vivien had insisted he see the doctor, but none of the prescribed medications had any effect.

Something terrible had happened the day of his stroke – he was sure of it. Dean, of course, held the answer, but Barry dared not question him. His brain had blotted it out, perhaps as a defence mechanism, and God knew what might happen if he attempted to reinstate it. Recalling his state of mind immediately before his illness, it was possible that during that summer of 'eighty-six he hadn't been entirely sane. The firm had been going down the drain, and just when salvation seemed at hand in the form of Tony's new invention, he'd announced he was leaving and taking his patent with him. It must have been that final straw that had brought on his breakdown, frantic as he was with worry about the business, about being able to care for his family, and the shame of losing his home and removing Daphne from her private school.

Tony. Somehow, the terrible thing was connected with Tony, who had drowned on a fishing trip while Barry lay in hospital. And although it had, of course, been a terrible tragedy, there was no denying that his death had saved the firm. The longed-for patent had dropped into their laps, business had slowly recovered, and Ferris Engineering, of which he was chairman, was now the most prosperous firm in the area, as well as the most generous. At Dean's instigation they had set up various funds to assist young people in the early stages of their careers, and as often as not employed them when they attained their qualifications.

 

That Saturday while Dean sat brooding in his car, Barry and Vivien's daughter and her husband called in on their way home.

‘Did you see that thing in the paper, about the murders?' Daphne asked as they sat over a cup of tea.

Vivien raised an eyebrow. ‘What murders?'

‘That young couple in Penthwaite, ages ago.'

Barry's hand unaccountably shook, and he hastily put down his cup. ‘When, exactly?' he asked.

‘It was the summer you had your stroke, Dad. It was in all the papers, but since you were out of it, you probably never heard about it. They were holidaymakers, and someone bashed them both over the head and killed them. They never caught him.'

Barry gripped the arms of his chair as his brain fumbled after a memory and immediately shied away from it.

‘So why drag it up again now?' Daphne's husband, Rob, was asking.

She shrugged. ‘God knows, but someone's offering a reward for information. They'll be lucky, after all this time.'

‘It's taken them long enough to get round to it,' Rob commented. ‘Talk about cold cases – this one must be in the deep freeze!'

‘It was a bad summer all round,' Vivien said reflectively, ‘what with the firm being on the brink, then Tony drowning and Dad's stroke. I can understand the family wanting to get to the bottom of it, perhaps making one last attempt before a parent died.'

‘Maybe,' Rob conceded. ‘But in my opinion, they haven't a hope in hell.'

The equilibrium Kirsty established that afternoon at the club was, alas, soon shattered. That night she was woken by the continuous ringing of the doorbell, and struggled up through clinging layers of sleep to heart-thumping panic. Could it possibly be Angie? The snip was down, so she wouldn't be able to use her key. But even if she and Simon had quarrelled again, she wouldn't come back at this time of night.

Pushing the hair from her eyes she slipped out of bed, crossed to the window and, holding the curtain to one side, looked down into the garden far below. The street lights were out – a council economy, which meant it was after midnight, and still the ringing continued, echoing insistently round the listening house. Then, from one heartbeat to the next, it stopped, and the silence was almost as deafening. Immobile, she stood waiting, and after a full minute a shadowy form, indeterminate in shape, emerged from the outline of the porch beneath her, slipped quickly down the path and out of the gate.

He'd gone, whoever he was. Clinging to the banister for support, she tiptoed down to the first floor and peered down the stairway to the hall. Her eyes had adapted to the darkness, and if he'd pushed anything through the letterbox, she'd be able to detect it. But there was nothing to detect. At least she'd not gratified him by putting on a light; he'd no way of knowing that he'd succeeded in waking her. Only a modicum of comfort, but it was all she had.

Shivering, she crept back to bed.

K
irsty, Kirsty! Why couldn't he get her out of his head? Why was he so strongly attracted to her, when, as part-owner of a successful business and brimming with self-confidence, she embodied everything that, over the last few decades, he'd come to loathe in women?

Where were the sweet, docile girls of his youth, who'd looked up to men? Gone, all gone! They'd joined the police, become army officers, vicars, doctors – all rightly men's jobs – flaunting their authority with infuriating complacency. He'd fantasized endlessly about pricking their self-esteem, taking them down a peg or two, but it was only recently that he'd dared turn fantasy into fact.

Surprisingly, the first few encounters were never reported – didn't want to lose face, he supposed – and this encouraged him to go further. He chose his victims with care – women who'd been fêted in the press for some achievement, pictured with a self-satisfied smile – and half the excitement had been tracking them down. Where was that superiority when they were flat on their backs beneath him, like that stupid little cow from the train who'd spent the whole journey on her mobile, ensuring everyone knew how important she was? Not so self-sufficient, was she, when she was crying and begging him not to hurt her?

The policewoman was a mistake – he accepted that, but she shouldn't have preached at him. The balaclava had, as always, been in his briefcase – too dangerous to leave lying around – so, on a whim really, he'd followed her, intending to teach her a lesson like the others. When she'd turned into that alley he'd made his move, but it had gone wrong from the first. The silly bitch had struggled and fought, yelling and shouting, and when she'd managed to claw off the balaclava, he'd pressed it over her mouth and, desperate to silence her, had gone on pressing.

He'd been stunned when she suddenly went limp, had tried in increasing panic to shake a response out of her, even if she had seen his face. And when finally he'd accepted she was dead, he'd vomited for long, agonizing minutes before stumbling away in the knowledge that he'd have the whole bloody police force after him. He'd been jittery for weeks, but as time passed he started to relive with growing excitement the moment the life went out of her. That, surely, had been the ultimate put-down, the unequivocal victory. Perhaps, once the heat had died down, he'd risk experiencing it again.

In the meantime, there was Kirsty. He'd sent the emails to unsettle her, make her uneasy, but she'd ignored both them and his gifts and she should be punished for that – punished above all for getting under his skin and coming between him and his sleep. It would need careful planning, but when the time was right he would make his move.

Summer gradually slid into autumn. Leaves turned colour, the days shortened. Adam settled into college life, where his astringent comments delivered in his Canadian accent had, to his surprise, made him popular with his pupils. In his spare time he searched the Web for information, but nothing new had come to light and there'd been no response to his press appeal. Eventually he decided to put it on hold until his visit to the Lakes, when he'd be able to deal with people more directly.

At Gateaux to Die For business increased after the summer lull with a spate of birthdays and anniversaries that, in addition to their regular orders, kept Kirsty and Angie busy. Though she and Adam had spoken on the phone they'd not met again, but Kirsty knew she must tell her aunt and uncle of their forthcoming trip, and when, during a Sunday lunch in late September, Janice enquired if she'd seen him recently, she took the opportunity.

‘I haven't, no, but we've decided to go up to the Lakes together at half term.'

Roy laid down his knife with a clatter. ‘You've
what
?'

Kirsty said steadily, ‘We want to see for ourselves where everything happened, and Adam's found out a few things that—'

‘
No!
' Janice was staring at her with horrified eyes. ‘No, no, no! I won't hear of it!'